It is time to start the new thread for the month!
We came from here:
The thread "Our Orchid Blooms in June, 2013" in Orchids forum

This particular Cattleya aclandiae has never bloomed for me in the many years I am growing it. Last year I finally removed it from its pot, split it, anchored two small pieces with a bit of coconut fiber in small Clay pots and they finally took off.


Small Ascofinetia Peaches


Darwinara Charm 'Blue Star' is now fully open. Nice scent!


Darwinara Fuchs Cream Puff x Asctm miniatum opens a small spike.


Darwinara Rainbow Stars ( nicely scented)


And another Darwinara Rainbow Stars


Gotta love Encyclia tampensis and similar for the happy spray of scented blooms, the larger bloom in the 3. picture adds some Chocolate scent. Very nice to walk into the cage in the morning.


Epic El Hatillo 'Pinta' is loving this weather


The leaves on the Epi longipetalum x Laelia lundii are really dark this year due to extra sun exposure, and it hasn't stopped blooming since I put it outside.


I love the new Gongora Pterodactyl, is has now another long, pendulous spray of "mini Dinos". The flowers are incredibly fragrant, a top note of Cloves with a bit of Cinnamon!


My regular ( and mounted) Neofinetia falcata is a happy camper again, lots of spikes in the work and it smells so nice!


Neofinetia falcata Benisuzume is still blooming


Vanda Adisak starts opening, I can't get the color right, it is deeply bluish/plum colored.


Vanda Pakchong Blue is still going strong, the color is a beautiful deep blue. I find it impossible to capture the precise shade in the light outside.


And Rodriguezia lanceolata opens 4 spikes


And finally - Kathy you asked about the rain here? Well, we looked at the lawn a couple of days ago and found a good patch of a beautiful white Slime mold. The next day it had turned black.
Enough water?

Ursula, a wonderful flight through your fabulous orchid land, with an abrupt 'thump' back to earth at the end. The snow mold is kind of pretty until it collapses, isn't it.

My first new bloomer on a catt in quite a while. This one is a NoID at the moment. I think the tag is down in that nice, big pot somewhere . . As you can see, I tried out some of the fancy (expensive ! ! ) ceramic pots for a while. Now I realize I'm going to have to break them to get the 'chids out when it's time to re-pot. This big old catt is already climbing out of that nice black pot, too.


Brassavola 'Yellow Bird' is fading to ivory today. We've had an unprecedented amount of clouds and a lot of rain the last few days, so the "cool" weather slows down the color change.

Great start, Ursula and Elaine. I tried to post yesterday but I see it never made it. We spent the day in Copenhagen. Truth is, there is not much to see. Overcast with temps near 60. My jacket is fast becoming my best friend. The food has been great. Prime rib on the first night, roast rack of lamb on night two and braised ribs tonight. We're back at sea now headed for Estonia.

Jim

Thanks Jim and Elaine.
You are eating well! I love Danish food ( we had a Danish cook in Greenland a couple of years ago, yum!!)
Enjoy Estonia! Hope the weather is better.

Elaine, regarding the Slime mold, it had to be "cleaned up" before mowing the lawn as it was ready to SPREAD!
Pretty Cattleya!
Breaking those pots - ouch.....

We're glad to hear you are 'fortifying' yourselves against that cold weather, Jim! It is pouring down in buckets today here, and no end in sight. We had a record cool high temp of 80deg. The really sad news is that all this rain is headed your way, Ursula. More slime mold to come, I fear!

Down here we get dollar weed when the lawns get watered too much. Jim will be able to pay for his cruise with all the dollars in his lawn if this keeps up.

Oh no!! No more slime molds.....

Really great blooms Ursula. Ascofinetia Peaches is my favorite

Elaine, How long has that yellow bird flower lasted so far

Ursula i love your Cattleya aclandiae and your Vandas. Wow you have some orchids blooming.
Elaine that catt is awsome. Beautiful colour.

Thanks

Very pretty, Bree

Thanks, Bree. The other two buds on that big catt are nearly open, so more pictures coming soon. Your yellow cym ? above is great! Pic gets smaller when you click it, btw

Ted the Yellow Bird opened on Friday, so this is its 5th day. It's going to be moving to yellow pretty soon. They often last several weeks in the winter, but in summer, not as long. Except, we are having a really rainy few days here so it's been nice and cool. Cool in FL in July!!

yeah i know sorry, thats my phone for you. hehe!

Oo! Slime mold! Ursula in what medium do you grow gongoras? When I get them from Black Jungle, they are in sphagnum and you know what that means-they are fine for 6 months and suddenly die.

Brassavola 'Yellow Bird' getting yellow finally. The Big Catt with all 3 flowers open. Naturally they all face different directions . ..

Ursula, I love that Cattleya aclandiae, worth the wait! Elain, that big Catt is really pretty, seems to glow! Oops, I thought I had some photos, must still be in my camera.

It gets a little sun in the morning, Susan. Right now the sun is on it, and it really is glowing. The 3rd pic above really shows the colors more accurately. Lots of red.

No new blooms here today, but I just took this picture to show someone how I covered my 'chids against all the heavy rain. Over 3in. yesterday here, and more expected today.

I noticed all my Vandas are looking perky with new leaves and roots showing up. They are really relishing all this extra water. Jim was so right that in summer here, with higher temps it looks like you pretty much can't overwater a Vanda - they love it!

Looking good, Elaine.

Kathy, the two older ones I have are by without medium. But, nowadays my medium of choice for those would probably be a fast draining basket with some Coconut fiber to anchor them.

Nice blooms, guys. The temps were up yesterday and today here in St. Petersburg. We finished up two long days of touring with a before hour special tour of the hermitage. Fantastic. The city is filled with massive apartment buildings as there are no houses. This was brought on by the communist government. Very strange and quite ugly and depressing. Speaking of long days, sunset last night was at 10:45 and it was still light at midnight when we went to bed. I woke at 2:00 AM and the sky was red/orange. Official sunrise is around 4 AM. We sail to Helsinki tonight.

Jim

It's a huge dream of mine to go to the Hermitage....

These type of buildings were very typical throughout East Germany also, East Berlin has them as well. They were called Socialistische Einheits Gebaeude - Socialistic uniform buildings. Quite ugly!